Accessibility

The power of the Web is in its
universality. Access by
everyone regardless of disability is
an essential aspect.Tim
Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor
of the World Wide
Web

The Web is fundamentally designed to work
for all people, whatever their hardware,
software, language, location, or
ability. When the Web meets this goal, it
is accessible to people with a diverse
range of hearing, movement, sight, and
cognitive ability.

Thus the impact of disability is
radically changed on the Web because the
Web removes barriers to
communication and interaction that many
people face in the physical world. However,
when web sites, applications, technologies,
or tools are badly designed, they can
create barriers that exclude people from
using the Web.

Accessibility is essential
for developers and organizations that want
to create high quality websites and web
tools, and not exclude people from using
their products and services.

The mission of the Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is to
lead the Web to its full potential to be
accessible, enabling people with
disabilities to participate equally on the
Web.

Why: The Case for Web Accessibility

The Web must be accessible to provide equal
access and equal opportunity to people with
diverse abilities. Indeed,
the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities recognizes access to
information and communications
technologies, including the Web,
as a basic human right.

Accessibility supports social
inclusion for people with
disabilities as well
as others,
such
as older
people, people in rural areas, and people
in developing countries.

Accessibility also benefits people without
disabilities. The Web
Accessibility Perspectives video
shows examples of how accessibility is
essential for people with disabilities and
useful for everyone in a variety of
situations.

What: Examples of Web Accessibility

Properly designed websites and tools can
be used
by people with disabilities. However,
currently many sites and tools are
developed with accessibility barriers that
make it difficult or impossible for some
people to use them. Below are just a few
examples.

Alternative Text for Images

If alt text isn't provided for images, the
image information is inaccessible, for
example, to people who cannot see and use a
screen reader that reads aloud the
information on a page, including the alt
text for the visual image.

When equivalent alt text is provided, the
information is available to people who are
blind, as well as to people who turn off
images (for example, in areas with expensive
or low bandwidth). It's also available to
technologies that cannot see images, such as
search engines.

Transcripts for Audio

Just as images aren't available to people
who can't see, audio files aren't available
to people who can't hear. Providing a text
transcript makes the audio information
accessible to people who are deaf or hard
of hearing, as well as to search engines
and other technologies that can't hear.

It's easy and relatively inexpensive for
websites to provide transcripts. There are
also transcription
services that create text transcripts in
HTML format.

How: Make Your
Website and Web Tools Accessible

Most of the basics of accessibility are
fairly easy to implement. However, if you
are new to accessibility, it takes some
time and effort to learn the common issues
and solutions. Here are places to start:

Some accessibility barriers are more
complicated to avoid and the solutions take
more development time and effort. W3C WAI
provides extensive resources to help, such
as Tutorials
and support materials linked from
the WCAG
2 Overview.

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at W3C

The
W3C Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI) brings
together people from industry, disability
organizations, government, and research labs
from around the world to
develop
guidelines
and resources
to help make the Web accessible to people
with auditory, cognitive, neurological,
physical, speech, and visual disabilities.

We invite individuals and organizations
to participate
in WAI by implementing, promoting, and
reviewing guidelines and resources;
contributing to the WAI Interest Group; and
participating in Working Groups.